Films and TV box sets reviewed in under 200 words. Because you really just want to know if it's good.

Month: May 2011

The teenage Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) has been raised in the wilds of Finland by her dad (Eric Bana) to look after herself. She’s equally capable of taking down a deer or a Special Forces troop. He’s a rogue CIA agent who’s been hunted by his former boss Marissa (Cate Blanchett) since Hanna was a baby.… Read More Hanna

Aka Des Vrais Mesonges or Full Treatment Emilie (Audrey Tautou) runs a hairdressing salon and always knows what’s best for everyone, even when she doesn’t. She can’t get her mother to move on from her divorce from Emilie’s father years before, and she is oblivious to the infatuation of Jean (Sami Bouajila), the shy handyman,… Read More Beautiful Lies

It sounds like a horror movie, but is in fact a 3D documentary about the literally irresistible toad and its spread from Queensland, where it was introduced in 1935 to control the greyback cane beetle. The filmmaker, Mark Lewis, has developed a great respect for these born survivors, to the extent that no toads were… Read More Cane Toads: The Conquest

Strangely not subtitled Hair of the Dog, this is exactly like The Hangover, only with more product placement. And penises. Stu the dentist is getting married on a Thai island, and despite doing their best to stay out of trouble, the boys don’t, waking up in a roach hotel in Bangkok with no memory of… Read More The Hangover Part II

Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) finds himself, not entirely voluntarily, aboard the ship of Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his daughter (Penélope Cruz) in a three-way race against Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and the Spanish (the Spanish) to find the Fountain of Youth (a slightly underwhelming lump of fibreglass). Writers Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot turn in another… Read More Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Toru’s best friend Kizuki kills himself for no apparent reason, leaving childhood sweetheart Naoko devastated and Toru adrift. It’s 1967 and Toru continues his studies and part-time jobs aloof from the political upheavals occupying his fellow students. Then the fragile Naoko reappears in his life and they begin a tentative affair. But are they healing,… Read More Norwegian Wood

Williams Burke (Simon Pegg) and Hare (Andy Serkis) are two Irish migrants to 1820s Edinburgh who discover there’s a quid to be made from a stiff. Edinburgh is a centre for anatomical research, and the demand for corpses for dissection exceeds supply. So while the first body they deliver is a boarding house resident who’s… Read More Burke & Hare